Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

It is difficult to explain the magic of Antonioni's films. Like many other films of this fantastic filmmaker, this "passenger" is also a slow film, with long sequences without dialogues but full of meanings, that addresses the same themes of the emptiness of the human condition, of alienation, of the attempt to escape a certain existence, the bankruptcy of relationships, the inability to communicate. The filmmaking of this filmmaker is beautiful and unique, it has a hypnotic effect on us, viewers. Even when he films banal things, we are delighted and dazzled by what we see. In this film, the final 7-minute sequence filmed from the bedroom window where Jack Nicholson stands is anthology.

Although I had seen Michelangelo Antonioni's "The Passenger" when it first appeared on television in the late 70's, I was disappointed that it didn't seem to measure up to "Blowup", and pretty much forgot about it.However, there have been so many references to the film over the years, especially when the conversation turns to movies with ambiguous plots and obscure endings, that I decided to give it another go.I still don't think it has the sharpness or style of "Blowup", but I now appreciate it more, and definitely love that unresolved ending. However, it has a flaw, and it weakens the film – it's a mistake that Hitchcock would never have made.Jack Nicolson plays David Locke, a reporter seeking to interview rebel leaders in North Africa. He is disillusioned with just about everything, before suddenly seeing a chance at a new life. When David Robertson (Charles Mulvehill), a man who looks uncannily like him, dies of a heart attack in the same hotel, Locke swaps identities with him.Although he gets away with it, he begins to realise that Robertson is an illegal arms dealer, and is involved with dangerous people. As he travels from Africa to London and then on to Spain, the movie becomes a waiting game to see which of Jack's pasts will catch up with him first.And what do I think is the flaw in the film? It's all in the timing. More than half way through the movie, Locke meets Maria Schneider's character, billed simply as 'Girl'. Schneider brings such an aura of sexual tension to the film that you realise just how flat the first half has been. Antonioni should have brought her in far earlier.What an amazing impact she has, whether it's memories of her character from "Last Tango in Paris" or simply her enigmatic sultriness, she gives the film a charge of energy. The best scenes in "The Passenger" come from the air of expectation built up around Jack Nicholson's double identities and the presence of Maria Schneider.The movie was made in 1975 and, as was the vogue in many European and Hollywood movies at the time, romanticises the revolutionaries and guerrillas. However, divorced from the headlines and the mood of the 70's, the back-story of "The Passenger" seems overly contrived.For anyone who has not seen the "The Passenger", but been exposed to all the tricky plots in films over the intervening years, you could be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss was about. The film generated a great deal of analysis about the idea of escaping one's identity, but surely more has been read into it than could ever have been intended.Nonetheless, "The Passenger" still has the unique pairing of Nicholson and Schneider, and that deliciously ambiguous ending.

Journalist David Locke (Jack Nicholson) travels the Sahara Desert and meets gunrunner David Robertson. He finds the lookalike gunrunner dead and switches identities. He tries to fly away but others believing he's the real Robertson want him to deliver. In Barcelona, he meets a girl (Maria Schneider). Meanwhile his old colleagues are looking for Robertson to do a story on Locke's last days.It's very naturalistic, slow, long scenes, lots of nothingness and rather ponderous. The first half is a real drag. Maria Schneider comes in after an hour. She's able to inject a little bit of energy, a very little. At least, Jack Nicholson has somebody to truly interact with. That's my main objection to the first half. It's all about trying to figure out what the heck he's doing. There is the fascinating single shot scene near the end. It's interesting to see the only true saving grace. At least, this is director Michelangelo Antonioni's style. It just isn't mine.

Which you might call a better film, since it was more natural, less self-admiring and self-conscious, as well as three years earlier. There was a Girl-with-no-Name. She was a sort of a pick-up, in a way. Nicholson, like Oates, was someone who seemed to have lost his target in life, as well as the plot of his existence, and didn't know who he really was. We were told a little more about where Nicholson was coming from, though, which we never learned about Oates. Also, this was a kind of a road-movie, although the road criss-crossed the Mediterranean, not what I assume was the Bible belt, and the white convertible was more of a clipper than the 55 Chevy.The other characters in their bit-parts didn't seem to have much existence, either, and were just hanging around, waiting for something. Some reviewers complain about Schneider's performance. I thought she was just fine and dandy. Pity about that stupid Tango film. Couldn't see that she was high or doped in any way. Hendry, on the other hand, seemed to me genuinely and permanently sozzled every scene he was in. After it was all over, I spent time racking my brains to discover who someone called Stephen actually was, as I couldn't recall anyone with that name, or anyone playing a part which would fit someone of that name. I think I finally managed to place him. I have this funny feeling that if my name was Berkoff, I'd change it.Strange things happen in this movie. An African man, looking like a guerrilla leader, whose identity was obscure, was shot before our eyes, in real time, and in obvious reality. I never discovered why. Another man was suddenly kicked in the guts. I never worked that out either.I enjoyed this film. Can't really say why. I liked the photography, and the pace. It was slow, but it didn't seem slow. I kept expecting for things to happen, just like Blacktop. Another similarity was in the long-shots, where actions were happening in both foreground and background --- as well as middle-ground. I'm sure I will watch this again, and you can't ask for more when it comes to cinema. If you haven't seen Two-Lane Blacktop, try it. Another thought, as film-makers advance in years, they seem to abandon the idea of telling coherent stories, and, like I think Hitchcock once said, they just make pictures. Doesn't matter if these pictures don't join up, just because they move. Like walking through an exhibition in a picture gallery. It's happened to Tarantino as well.I was truly and exceptionally interested to see that Peter Wollen, an Oggsford man, had part-written the script.